Red lights in Ardennes, France

On October 4, 1954, between 6:40 PM and 7:00 PM, a 10-year-old girl (T1) riding a bicycle saw, 20 meters away from her, a "machine" that she first took for a camping tent. According to the child, the machine was oval in shape, possibly 2 meters wide and 2.5–3 meters high, with a conical shape on top, and rested on the ground on a rectangular base. When she approached the machine, a hatch (1 x 0.6 m) lifted. A man jumped to the ground and closed the hatch behind him, then stood still. Of normal size, he had a "square shape" on his head, piercing eyes, and a long garment with long brown-reddish hair. When the man moved forward, the child, seized by fear, fled without looking back. Two other people reported, at the same time and in the direction where the girl was, one a "bright red luminous machine" that he did not pay attention to, the other a noise like a cream separator that made her come out of her house. The child's father and a neighbor went to the observation site the same day at 9:00 PM and noted that the grass was "somewhat crumpled in a circular direction." The gendarmerie went to the site on October 6 but could make no findings. No further details were gathered during the investigation. In summary, for this case there are four distinct facts: - a single witness who sees a machine and "a human being" near her path. She does not see the machine take off. - simultaneously, a farmer sees in the sky a bright red luminous machine. - a third person hears at length a noise resembling that made by a cream separator. - the child's father and a farmer will find at 9:00 PM the same evening at T1's observation site, grass crumpled in a circular direction. No conclusive element guarantees that these four facts are linked. If one considers that they are linked, one can find a hypothesis to consider: - several elements seem compatible with a helicopter, perhaps a Bell 47, seen from the front (oval shape): the rotor support, the hatch, the noise, the crumpling of the grass, the pilot. The location ("on a grassy path opening into a small clearing") could lend itself to a landing. On the other hand, the rectangular base, the position of the hatch (if it had been on the side, could the witness have noted its width?), and the bright red light of the object are less easy to interpret. This case proves to be of average strangeness since a simple hypothesis can roughly fit. Its consistency is weak, as it relies mainly on a single witness (a child) and a short observation. GEIPAN classifies this case as C due to lack of information and cross-checking.